Point of Honor a pleasant surprise for trainer

Horse set to shine in CCA Oaks on Sunday

It's safe to say that Point of Honor, a 3-year-old filly, is not a morning girl.

Get her on the race track in the afternoon, and, oh, man, it's a different tune.

In her short four-race career, all she has done for trainer George Weaver is win three of four starts. She'll try to add to that resume when she takes part in the Grade I, $500,000 Coaching Club American Oaks on Sunday afternoon at Saratoga Race Course.

Point of Honor is the 7-2 second choice in the five-filly field, behind the Chad Brown-trained Guarana, who is 2-5.

Weaver, a former assistant to D. Wayne Lukas as well as two other Lukas assistants (Todd Pletcher and Mark Hennig), has been on his own since 2002. By his own admission, he does not get a bundle of marquee horses.

If he is able to win the Coaching Club American Oaks, it will be his second career Grade I win.

He thinks he might have the filly to do it. But he would never have told you that when he first started watching her train. Point of Honor just isn't into the early morning stuff.

"She doesn't train in the morning like she is anything special," Weaver said Thursday morning outside his barn at the Oklahoma Training Track. "We worked with her quite a bit as a 2-year-old and, quite frankly, she never did anything special in the morning. She doesn't break any stopwatches."

Trainer George Weaver gives his Oaks filly Point of Honor a pat on the neck at his barn at the Oklahoma Training track adjacent to the Saratoga Race Course for morning exercise Thursday July 18 2019 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Special to the Times Union by Skip DicksteinSKIP DICKSTEIN

Point of Honor will consistently work four furlongs in a pedestrian 49 seconds or so. That's just her. Things change in the afternoon.

"When she started running (in races), we got an inclination she might be a little better than what she was showing us in the mornings," Weaver said.

In her latest start, the Grade II Black Eyed Susan the day before the Preakness at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, she ran 1 1/8 miles in a time of 1:47 4/5 and she won by a half-length.

A lot better in the afternoon, that's for sure.

Granted, she will be facing some tougher fillies in here, including Champagne Anyone, who beat her in the Grade II Gulfstream Oaks in Florida over the winter.

Usually, Weaver said, a horse will do in the afternoon what it does in the mornings. Point of Honor, who was sired by the mighty Curlin, is just different.

When Weaver worked under Lukas, the Hall of Famer, he remembers Thunder Gulch, the 1995 Kentucky Derby, Belmont and Travers winner, as being a not-so-great work horse in the morning. Things changed when he ran in the afternoon.

"It is kind of rare," Weaver said. "But I believe race horses, especially good race horses, know they are good. I see that in her disposition. I see it in her eye. She knows she is good. She has really developed a certain amount of confidence."

Point of Honor will be ridden by regular jockey Javier Castellano, who has been on board for all three of her starts this year. She was ridden in her only race as a 2-year-old by Irad Ortiz Jr.

The filly does her best running from off the pace. If she gets that in the Oaks, she might have more than a big chance to win it.

"It would be a little more favorable to have a little more pace to run at," Weaver said. "Whether or not she needs it, I''m not sure."